Equinor says LNG deliveries unaffected by plant shutdown

OSLO, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Norway’s oil and gas firm Equinor said liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries to customers have not been affected so far by a shutdown of its Melkoeya LNG plant in northern Norway.

The plant, which liquefies natural gas from the Arctic Snoehvit gas field for transportation by tankers, has been shut since Jan. 4 due to a compressor failure.

“We are currently working to start up again. As of now, this stop does not affect Equinor’s deliveries to our customers,” spokeswoman Elin Isaksen said in an email on Friday.

Equinor said on its website it expected the outage to end on Jan. 14.

Refinitiv Eikon data shows only one LNG cargo has left Melkoeya so far this month versus seven cargoes in December and six in January 2018.

The LNG tends to be sent to Europe and further afield to Mediterranean ports in Turkey, Egypt and Jordan.

The company declined to comment on the arrangements with its customers. (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, additional reporting by Sabina Zawadzki in London; editing by Jason Neely)

The global LNG industry is becoming increasingly interconnected as grassroots export projects get off the ground. Another technology route for processing gas into fuels—GTL—is attracting renewed attention due to improving economics. Small-scale solutions for both LNG and GTL are at the forefront of new technological developments, while major projects using more conventional technologies continue to start up around the world.